Bible In One Year-Day49 (Tuesday, February 18, 2014)

Commentary: Lev23-25. God allowed some festivals for the Israelites. However, they were not without guides. The first fruit is so important that God mentioned it again in Lev23. More also, He made them to know that it is a religious responsibility to show concern for the poor and the strangers among them (Lev23:22). This basically emphasizes that God delights in giving. By leaving those un-harvested crops to the poor and the strangers, it means that you are giving without expecting a reward. This is God’s standard. In Lev25:39-43, we read that they should not take advantage of the hard times of another to enslave. In every aspect of life, oppression is not a thing God takes delight in; life matters to God. Your impact to a man’s life gives God delight. It is good for us to take time to read Matt25:33-46. There are two sets of people living together in this world, the SHEEP and the GOATS. It is very difficult to separate them now and as a matter of fact we can’t do it, only God could; this separation will be on the last day. According to 1Cor4:4-5, we should not judge, God will do that finally. The term “born again” is a slogan now and so you can’t differentiate the sheep from the goats. For instance, in churches, the goats are the ushers, prayer warriors etc. they screen the innocent sheep that just came into the church for salvation and guidance. These ‘goats’ make life difficult for the tender sheep (poor in heart) until the sheep wander away. The chairs in the church are not meant for the righteous but for the sinners to hear the word of God from the mouth of the righteous (the caring). Righteousness is measured not by painted activities in the church but by the reflection of God’s Spirit through you to impact another life. Three things should be evident in a Christian’s life (and in a church); love, life and service. By showing love, we embrace the sinner into the church, through our personal character we share life and through service we guide. These are what God expects amongst us. Sinners and unbelievers don’t count the church to be a refuge again because of the weird things happening in the church nowadays; the church is dirty. To remove oppression, God declared the year of Jubilee for the Israelites. The 7^th day is Sabbath, the 7^th year is the Sabbath year, but after seven Sabbath years (49years) Jubilee is declared, i.e. no more oppression. I pray that the oppression that is advancing with your age shall be terminated in the name of Jesus. The Sabbath of the 7^th day is for reflection of your relationship with God. You check your life and balance your account. This is to maintain a good stand before the Lord. But for the Jubilee, it is for liberty. Jesus came as the Sabbath to set the captives free, Lk4:18-19. That liberty is still available now. However, it is available for those who have the Spirit of the Lord, 2Cor3:17. By this Spirit, the fire of the love of Jesus is not quenched, the grace of Jesus abounds, the love of God waxes stronger; what an experience to have the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Lev24: 2 is God’s command to Moses that PURE OIL, should be brought to make the lamp burn/glow continually (perpetually). You need the Holy Spirit to make the light of the gospel glow continually; not by might, not by power but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. Prayer: Holy Spirit, explode in me in the name of Jesus. Next mile on the trip is Lev26-27. Keep the fire burning and alive. HE REIGNS!!!

Bible In One Year-Day 48 (Monday, February 17, 2014)

Commentary: Lev20-22. Lev20-22 has similar instructions from the Lord to the Israelites and to the priests. In Exodus, what God told Moses was to go bring the Israelites out of Egypt that they may serve Him and Him to be their God. For them to walk with God, they needed ordinances and these were what God gave them in the portion we just read. It was not on their terms and that is why He kept on repeating it to their hearing “I am the Lord who brought you out of Egypt”. In the guides, it is evident that God abhors disrespect to parents. After God, we must reverence our parents. We have a lot of obligations and responsibilities to our parents. The most powerful prayer you ever could receive that will come to pass in your life time and outlive you is that which come out of their mouth and from the heart. Little do we realize the authority and power God gave parents over the children. Though Jacob was dubious in his own way, Isaac’s pronouncement over him still came to pass. Jacob’s blessings over his children were evident. Whatever plan, purpose and grace of God over a person’s life, it is the parents prayer that triggers it. Ignoring them especially at old age is a great sin in the presence of God. If parents are not Christians but you are, you still have to prayerfully carry out your responsibilities. That is the Lord’s ordinance. May the Lord shine more light to our understanding in the name of Jesus. The next mile on the trip is Lev23-25. Keep the fire burning and alive. LIFT HIM UP!!!

Bible In One Year-Day 47 (Sunday, February 16, 2014)

Commentary: Lev17-19. The book of Leviticus we are reading is a major book in the books of the law. We just completed Lev17-19 and a good understanding of it is that the particular subject in the message is love between one another. The word LOVE is deep. Many have given it different definitions and meanings and, I must confess, they are still doing that. Whatever definition given to love, the understanding is the core thing. The way you describe a good meal is not as memorable as the taste of it. Love is more than description; it is about experience. Apart from my experience of the sight of Jesus, I had sat with a lot who had the vision of Jesus; there is an unusual aura that radiates round our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That aura is an unusual LOVE that penetrates you and melts your being to weaken the knee and, in most cases, you condemn yourself before Him. Peter said “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” Lk5:8; he could not stand Christ’s glory. When you come in contact with that glory, your subsequent sinful actions makes your conscience to raise alarms and you become uncomfortable. The mistake many make is that they run away from making the correction. And in doing this, they try to bribe the conscience with excuses. We discussed this when we were reading about Jacob. After 20 years, Jacob’s conscience still cried even after God had blessed him. We need to be careful about this aspect of our life; it can cage one for as long as such refuses to make correction. Correction to the cry of the conscience is mostly through restitution. Restitution might not be in terms of returning stolen items only, the three worded statement “I am sorry” is enough in most cases. That simple sentence is very powerful, even more than all available excuses. The trials of those who had met Jesus are more than what they could bargain for; it usually seems, a times, as if the whole world is against them. This is part of the training as a soldier of Christ. You might even think of giving up a times; NO!!! Don’t do that. It is after you have gone through these that you become a vessel unto honor (useful to the dying soul and the hopeless). Lev17 tells us that killing of any animal for any reason without bringing it to the door of the tabernacle amounts to sin. One of the wisdom obtainable in this is that whatever you do should be to the glory of God; celebrations, feastings etc. If this was not done, it means the person did it only to satisfy flesh and demons of where they left (Egypt or the world). If the attributes of your past is still evident in your present Christian life and you are not making effort to deal with it, it may make your worship to the Lord become a sin. Anger, pride, cheating, hatred, envy, complacency, untamed tongue, impatience, name it, are hindrances to spiritual progress. You must praise God with your substance. Your relationship with people shows how soaked you are in God and how much the Holy Spirit has worked on you. I am not talking about righteous appearance (which matters also) but more importantly about righteous reflection (from within). To help the definition of love to some extent, Lev18 expounded a little bit by talking about sexual relationship so that we don’t take unholy love to mean love. When God created things, the bible says they looked beautiful and in order. The truth is that they function as good and in the way God intended it to be. Man brought perversion to distort what was good. Woman was created from the rib of man as a woman companion, not a ‘man companion’. They law of the land could give you a right to stand by your opinion or insanity, but as far a God is concerned, it is detestable, disgusting, strongly disapproved and an abomination, Lev18:22-23. Homosexuality and bestiality are abominations to the Lord and it is demonic. Agreement with this is giving the demon a right, that is, PIG IN A PARLOR, Lev17:7 (the right thing in the place). Those who practice it are not condemned but the act is against God’s purpose of creation. They should be corrected in love and more impotantly, prayerfully. When we use prayer, it kills the evil desire of misplacement of sexual judgment and gives them the right mind of affection for the opposite sex just as the Lord intended from the beginning; DELIVERANCE. It is good to read Lev19 understandingly and with reflection because more emphases are on how we relate with one another. Prayer: O Lord, let Your word explode in me with the fire in it in the name of Jesus. Next mile on the trip is Lev20-22. Keep the fire burning and alive. Never stop until His coming.

Bible In One Year-Day 46 (Saturday, February 15, 2014)

Commentary: Lev14-16. Lev14 talks about the law of the leper for the day of his cleansing. A leper is socially rejected and to bring him back into the fold, he needed to be cleansed. However, after being healed, people might still doubt his healing and this is where the Priest had to come in to examine if it was true or not. And not until the Priest proclaims and carries out ceremonial duties, the leper is not accepted. After the priest had done this, then there is reconciliation with God and the people. This is atonement. Romans5:11 says that we receive atonement through Jesus Christ to reconcile mankind to God by the shedding of His blood. The ceremony for the atonement in Lev14 could be expensive for some, Verse32, but Christ’s atonement is for all and free. All through Lev14-16, God gave the instructions concerning atonement. As much as God desires in our reconciliation with Him, He also desires our physical hygiene, which He emphasized greatly in chapter15. Cleanliness is godliness. Our inward purity is as necessary as our outward purity before the Lord. Many sicknesses are actually caused through lack of proper hygiene and we end up blaming witches. We need to care for our bodies, the temple of the Holy Spirit. The care we give to our body should not be our confidence though. For instance, a lot could relate with people very well only if they put on a new dress or dress the best in the church but if otherwise happens, you rarely notice their presence. This is because their confidence has been taking away. When your confidence lies in the dress, perfume of cream you put on, you have shifted from the faith. These are unnecessary burdens we put on ourselves. The beauty inside is what satisfies God while the beauty outside is what deceives men. You need to balance up this. As a child of God you must be smart, look nice and moderate in appearance and at the same time be virtuous within. Next mile on the trip is Lev17-19. Keep the fire burning and alive till His coming. Spread the gospel.

BIBLE In One Year-Day 45 (Friday, February 14, 2014)

Commentary: Lev11-13. God is so concerned about hygiene. As the saying goes “cleanliness is godliness”. Holiness within and without is what God demands from His children. The gospel does not discriminate about what animal to eat or what not to eat for as long as you sanctify it in the name of Jesus Christ. However, if you look critically at these forbidden animals in the Old Testament, they are not really healthy to eat even if they are deliciously prepared. They cause more health problems than the enjoyment derived from them; cholesterol etc. spiritually speaking, they still remain defiling entities and abominable. They represent some specific spirits and demons especially in the dream. They way to apply this abominable animals to our Christian lives is to disallow their spirits to infiltrate our souls. For instance, when you see the chameleon in the dream, it signifies a changing character, deception and slow progress. You need to deal with such spirit prayerfully because it brings about defilement before the Lord and hinders our genuine worship of the Lord. On deliverance ground, we have seen series of manifestations which take the likeness of the spirit of the type of the abominable animals stated in Lev11. Some roar like lions, some swim on the floor as if they are in the waters, some walk like cats and some manifest like a snake. Demons take the likeness of these animals in a man. Once these are noticed, deliverance is inevitable. Deliverance is the children’s bread. As a child of the living God, it is your right. Just as the Holy Spirit works through God’s children for signs and wonders, demons carry out their havocs through possession and oppression. Deliverance changes the rule. Don’t be deceived that Christians cannot have demons, it is possible. Those who go for deliverance are mostly Christians. And the truth is that without being a Christian, there is no deliverance because you must accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior first before you could have the authority to cast out demons, Phil2:10/Mark16:17. Just as physical leprosy are described in Lev13, we have spiritual leprosy. The spiritual leprosy is more dangerous than the physical leprosy. The physical stay in the skin, the spiritual is of the ‘flesh’ (or soul) covered with beautiful looking and elegant dresses. Only Jesus, the High Priest, can look at it critically and cure it with His touch of power. All you have to do is to ask Him to heal you and being a faithful Father, He will, Lk5:12-13.

Luke 5:12-13 “And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.”

Spiritual leprosy causes rejection and disfavor. Anywhere such person goes, people are unwilling to work with such. Spiritual leprosy is basically seen in attitudes and behaviors. But once Jesus moves in, the rule changes; power changes hands. I pray for you that the mark of the blood of Jesus for divine favor and protection to be on you in the name of Jesus. Next mile on the trip is Lev14-16. Keep the fire burning and alive and spread the word of life.